More Good News on Jobs for February

Posted on Mar 9, 2012

For the third month in a row, figures coming in from the Department of Labor signal a stronger recovery in the employment market than the country has seen in years. President Obama gets a boost from the good news, but is there any way to read these numbers differently? And who’s benefiting the most? Here’s a breakdown from The New York Times.

The New York Times:

The economy added 227,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, and though the unemployment rate held steady at 8.3 percent, that was largely because nearly half a million people had joined, or resumed, the search for work in hopes their prospects had improved.

“We’ve seen a lot less Eeyore,” said Sherry Leginski, operations director at CareerPlace, a job placement center in the Chicago suburb of Barrington. “Maybe they’re turning a little bit more Tigger instead of Eeyore. They’re feeling better.”

[...] There were job gains across a broad swath of industries, including manufacturing, finance, professional services like law and accounting, hotels and restaurants, and mining. The construction industry lost jobs after two months of gains, and the retail sector shrank. For black men, the jobless rate increased, to 14.3 percent from 12.7 percent, while the biggest employment gains went to whites, black women and, overwhelmingly, to college graduates.